Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: The Devil’s Business / Cert: 18 / Director: Sean Hogan / Screenplay: Sean Hogan / Starring: Billy Clarke, Jack Gordon, Jonathan Hansler, Harry Miller / Release Date: Out Now

An intimate, atmospheric and chilling horror film from British Director Sean Hogan that works extremely well in the perimeters of its small budget. It boasts two particularly good lead performances and a tightly wound and smartly worded screenplay influenced by Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter.

Pinner (Billy Clarke) and Cully (Jack Gordon) are two hit-men sitting in wait at the residence for their next assigned victim Kist (Jonathan Hansler). Pinner is an old hand at this game and recites the dos and don’ts to his young, ambitious apprentice Cully through dialogue that intrigues and flows extremely well. With the Pinter influence it does have the feel of a play and, along with the dimmed lights and long conversations, this is a film that comfortably dwells in its creepy ambience. Pinner tells a story about a dancer that not only engrosses but adds to the eerie atmosphere and plays an important part in building tension and introducing Pinner’s character. Billy Clarke is captivating in his role and an actor whose films I now look forward to watching after such an excellent performance. Jack Gordon, who is fast becoming a name to watch (standing out amongst his peers in other horror films Panic Button and Truth or Die) nails the likeable fool with another confident performance as he successfully shifts from arrogant to nervous wreck as horrible events unfold.

Amongst all the chatter and darkened rooms there is something sinister at play. When the two are interrupted by a sound outside they investigate and find the remnants of a satanic ritual. Special effects from Dan Martin are gruesomely conceived, sloppy entrails and bloody bits laid out like the devil’s vomit. What is Kist involved in and how will the two fare against the black magic at work here?

This is slow burning, involving, verbose horror that ends on a playful and almost comical note that will either be embraced or laughed at. It aims at homage in the last ten minutes to films like Don’t Look Now and Phenomena that fans of horror will almost certainly get but may not like. Still, it stands up to multiple viewings and will appeal to a broader audience than many other small budget horrors thanks to its strong script, direction and performances. Amidst a slew of hackneyed, ill thought out horror the occasional gem shines like a bright beacon and this truly is the business. I can’t wait to see what Sean Hogan comes up with next.

Extras: None

Review: Ultimate Zombie Feast / Cert: 18 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Release Date: Out Now

This unusual 2-disc boxset gathers together over five hours of independent zombie movies from around the world, some only a few minutes long, a few of them near feature length. It’s a brave venture, but it inevitably raises the question – just how many explosive head-shots and messy gut-munchings can you sit through before you start to get bored? Answer: a LOT.

Of the shorter films, the most successful are those which embrace their smallness. In other words, they don’t try to do everything, and instead home in on some specific aspect of the zombie apocalypse. Not Even Death is a good example of this, the tale of a devoted husband who keeps his zombified wife chained up in the basement in hopes that she might someday snap out of it. The Skin of Your Teeth shows a group of survivors enjoying a brief idyll on an isolated farm, but you know it can’t last and pretty soon those walkers will come shuffling over the horizon. Meanwhile, Dead Hungry gives us a cabin in the woods siege from the point of a mostly ‘armless zombie called Jed.

Turning to the longer films, the undoubted standout is The Book of Zombie, in which a bickering couple find themselves under attack from a rabble of zombie Mormons (very much like ordinary zombies except for their intolerance to caffeine). It’s very funny, and boasts an excellent cast. Also very impressive is Zomblies, a slick, pacy Dog Soldiers-style actioner shot on Dartmoor.

From Spain comes the accomplished and touching Zombies and Cigarettes, in which an outbreak in a shopping mall provides an opportunity for the meek protagonist to blossom into a hero. The all-action Paris by the Night of the Living Dead is about two young French coolsters who know exactly what to do when their wedding is interrupted by flesh-eating ghouls. How not to tackle a zombie (get him in a headlock and tickle him with sticks) is perfectly illustrated by Savages, an Indian film which benefits from stunning locations only to be let down by histrionic performances. Best of all, though, is the Danish It Came from the West, a hilarious zombie Western with puppets.

Not all of the films are winners. With the ones that don’t work, the special effects are usually good, but poor sound and wooden acting take their toll, as do scripts which, uh, bite off more than they can chew. Despite this, Ultimate Zombie Feast has a cumulative impact which is more than the sum of its gory parts, providing as it does a vivid demonstration of just how deeply the living dead have entered into modern folklore. And you’ve gotta love all those head-shots and all that gut-munching.

Review: We Are the Night / Cert: 15 / Director: Dennis Gansel / Screenplay: Jan Berger and Denis Gansel / Starring: Karoline Herfurth, Nina Hoss, Jennifer Ulrich, Anna Fischer, Max Riemelt / Language: German with English subtitles / Release Date: October 15th

For Frankenstein it was 1965, but for the Wolfman we can place it with reasonable accuracy at 1981. If we include zombies then it wasn’t until 2002 but for the poor old mummy it was as long ago as 1932. Yes, these are the exact dates, as calculated by our expert team of horror film scientists, that these classic movie monsters ran out of ideas.

But what, we hear you ask, about vampires? Yes, vampires don’t give up so easily; they’re always looking for that new angle. The current bout of vampire movies is hardly recognisable from those early days of the animalistic Max Schrek or Bela Lugosi’s ‘man on his way to the opera’ routine. In fact, of late, vampire flicks even seem to have forgotten they’re supposed to be horror films at all.

Right from its jetliner heist opening, We Are the Night (2010) certainly comes across like a film which thinks it’s found a couple of new ideas. Louise (Hoss) is a vampire who lost her true love centuries ago but is still on the look-out for a replacement. That’s a new idea? Surely they can do better than that? Oh well, over the years she’s recruited Charlotte (Ulrich) and Nora (Fischer) as potential soul mates but neither appears to be the one she was looking for. You see, there are only female vampires. Male vampires are extinct; either killed by humans or finally finished off by the female vamps because they were ‘too loud, too greedy and too stupid’. Ah, now that’s a vaguely new spin; genius, really. Keeps the misandrists happy as well as any blokes who bought this ‘German, lesbian vampire movie’ for entirely the wrong reasons; Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen won’t be making any unwelcome appearances to ruin their fun (although they’ll still be in for a disappointment if that’s the sort of thing they were looking for). So Louise is still on the pull and ends up transforming street urchin Lena (Herfurth) who is on the run from Tom (Riemelt), the-most-useless-policeman-in-Europe.

This is where the film begins proper as Lena is shown the ropes of her new ‘life’. Once she’s over the whole killing-people-to-live thing it all appears to be a ball as Louise, Charlotte and Nora show her just how ‘loud, greedy and stupid’ lady vampires can be with their endless clubbing, shopping and, in the case of the particularly irritating Nora, deejaying. There’s even some sociopathic fast car action just in case the lads in the audience aren’t quite getting to grips with the fact that this is the bit of the movie where we see the ‘fun’ side of being a vampire. So nothing particularly new for the genre here either. But would you Adam and Eve it? There’s a downside to being a vampire. Who knew? It’ll come as no surprise that apart from that unpleasant business of killing people, there’s also the practicalities of sunbathing to be dealt with and all those difficult consequences that arise through the overrated gift of immortality. Charlotte is definitely not into this side of vampirism which is presumably why she sits around smoking a fag and looking miserable while her girlfriends behave like hedonistic airheads. In fact, this is done rather well with the former silent movie star watching her old films in which, of course, she looks exactly the same. In fact, there’s actually rather more to Charlotte’s downer on immortality which, while not particularly original, is at least handled in a genuinely touching way.

This is really where the strength of We Are the Night really lies. While it hasn’t really got any new ideas to speak of, it’s actually done so well that it comes across as being far fresher than it really is. The action scenes are very Bourne and even the cinematography is pretty good. There’s even some reasonable humour as we find that 21st century German security guards are about as gullible as German sentries in old British war movies. At least, we’re assuming that was humour. We think it may have had a plot but to be honest it was so lightweight we’re not sure we can recall it. But all in all it’s actually just quite enjoyable; nothing too clever, just something that seems to be aimed at those who have grown out of Twilight. While We Are the Night shows there might still be life in the vampire genre yet, it does rather look like our scientists might be able to fix a date when the vampire movie reached the same state as its colleagues. We’re predicting they’ll calculate that it was sometime in 2009 but this reviewer has a hunch it might be even longer ago than that.

Extras: ‘Making of’ documentary, deleted scenes and two alternate endings.

Review: As Good As Dead / Cert: 18 / Director: Jonathan Mossek / Screenplay: Erez Mossek, Eve Pomerance / Starring: Andie Mcdowell, Cary Elwes, Brian Cox / Release Date: Out Now

Blamed for the murder of a religious leader, Ethan (Cary Elwes) is held hostage by the followers. He must fight to prove his innocence or risk endangering those closest to him. Difficult choices lie ahead when each person believes what they are doing is right. However, it is the choices made in people’s past that comes back to haunt them.

The film takes its time so the viewer can relate to the characters, how they live and the people they care about. This is appreciated as it makes sympathising with them much easier as events unfold. As the story progresses, the relevance of the themes in the film do strike a subtle chord. Religion, violence and feeling safe in your own home, are themes which can be more frightening than a masked killer wielding a chainsaw. They plague the mind with strange scenarios and how situations can escalate for the worse.

There are some genuinely shocking moments throughout the film, and once all the cards are on the table, the pace of the film gets a welcome nudge. The script allows no time to be wasted, meaning there are no unnecessary shots or throwaway scenes. The acting helps with this a lot, however there is one gripe. Andie Mcdowell’s accent seems to be more cartoon villain than authentic. She has a presence on screen but the film would’ve been served best if she spoke less. The supporting cast does do a good job overall, with the highlight being Brian Cox. The music complements the film nicely, as it adds tension when necessary.

It’s always unpredictable how a film that so easily slips under the radar will fair. However it’s a pleasant surprise when that film proves to be enjoyable. As Good as Dead is a solid thriller which deserves a watch.

Review: Prometheus / Cert: 15 / Director: Ridley Scott / Screenplay: Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof / Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, Sean Harris, Rafe Spall / Release Date: Out Now

Alien fans wanted the origins of the Space Jockey and the Xenomorphs, the characters in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus wanted the origin of life and the secret of immortality. Except Captain Janek, who just wanted a paycheck. Of course, priorities change.

The planet they land on in search of this maintains the dark, nightmarish H.R. Giger inspired world we’ve become used to. Unfortunately Prometheus lacks the claustrophobia, tension and suspense that made Alien a success, and the all-out action, quotable lines and uneasy laughs of Aliens are missing too. There are occasional throwbacks, i.e. the ‘something’s getting close’ beeping from Aliens, but there is rarely a satisfying pay-off. There is one iconic scene involving a bit of impromptu surgery, and a visually stunning scene of pixilated Space Jockeys running down a tunnel, but the movie suffers from the ‘best bits were in the trailer’ syndrome. Religious and philosophical debate seem to drive the narrative instead, which works very well with Fassbender’s android David (who steals the show), but ultimately disappoints as a whole.

This DVD/Blu-ray release carries the tagline ‘questions will be answered’. The main questions Alien fans have been asking for the last 33 years were already answered, but only at the expense of more questions being created. This has prompted talk of a sequel, although whether this was actually intended or not is open to speculation. Fox want one, Scott has more or less confirmed it will happen but not necessarily with him, and history looks set to repeat itself again.

The major disappointment with the home video release itself is that it is not the rumoured Director’s Cut. There are 34 minutes of deleted footage, but these are not integrated into the film and have to be watched separately as part of the extras. The most notable of these are an extended beginning, and an ever-so-slightly ‘different’ ending. There are other bits, such as the video shorts of David and Peter Weyland’s TED conference that were released as part of the film’s viral marketing campaign, all accessible via a spaceship computer style interface. Even worse, those without Blu-ray will be further disappointed as there are only 10 minutes of extra footage and nothing else on the normal DVD release.

Sadly, like the film itself, this release just doesn’t live up to its own hype.

Extras: Alternate Scenes / Featurettes / Viral Videos (all Blu-ray only) / Deleted Scenes

Blu-ray Review: The Company of Wolves / Cert: 18 / Director: Neil Jordan / Screenplay: Angela Carter, Neil Jordan / Starring: Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, Stephen Rea, David Warner / Release Date: October 22nd

Before he hit his stride with Mona Lisa and The Crying Game, Neil Jordan made this unusual movie, an essay in the sort of lush Gothic artificiality to which he was to return with much greater commercial success in Interview with the Vampire. Co-scripted by Jordan with Angela Carter and drawing on her excellent short story collection The Bloody Chamber, it has as ingenious Chinese box structure: Rosaleen (Patterson), a modern-day girl, has a feverish dream in which she’s a Little Red Riding Hood-like character living in a village in the woods, and in that dream we hear various tales about the bad things that happen when you stray off the path… 

Source of most of these tall stories is her garrulous and moralistic Granny (Lansbury), who warns her about the wolves that prey on young girls, the ones who are “hairy on the outside” and the others, much deadlier and harder to spot, who are “hairy on the inside”. Eventually, Rosaleen has her own encounter with a werewolf, but it doesn’t play out quite the way it does in children’s books.

The look of the film is highly theatrical, a throwback to Hammer and Mario Bava, most of the action taking place on shallow, crowded sets matted with dead leaves and veiled in cobwebs and mist. But the quaint pictorial charm is undercut by plenty of graphic gore and eye-popping SFX. These culminate in several set-piece man-to-wolf transformations that employ what were then state of the art animatronics and prosthetics, including a great moment when a man tears his own face off and another when a furry muzzle comes bursting, phallically, out of a character’s mouth.

With all this going on, you might expect the acting to get swamped, but young Patterson keeps the attention firmly on herself, stumbling prettily through the woods with wide eyes and an insolent pout. The standout turn, though, comes from Lansbury (with a perm and John Lennon specs), cheerily trotting out all kinds of blood-curdling lore in a lilting Irish brogue.

Inevitably, the film now seems very much of its time, but Angela Carter’s sexually charged take on the werewolf story is still enjoyably provocative (the counter-argument to Granny’s hysterics is put by Rosaleen’s mother, who asserts that the beast in men meets its match in women). And, while Jordan’s direction can’t quite catch the sensuality of Carter’s prose, it delivers more than its fair share of strange and magical moments. With its rich visuals and an ear-caressing score by George Fenton, this is a movie that was meant for Blu-ray, and it deserves to be remembered as one of the more ambitious and thoughtful British films of the ’80s.

Extras: Jordan Commentary / Trailer / Stills Gallery / Behind the scenes dossier

Review: The Castle of Cagliostro / Director: Hayao Miyazaki / Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki / Starring: Yasuo Yamada, Eiko Masuyama, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Taro Ishida / Release Date: November 12th

Owing more than a little to Maurice LeBlanc’s sleuth of the same name (a subject of lawsuits at the time), the gentleman thief Lupin was a popular cartoon character on Japanese TV in the ’70s. But this, his second film outing, is especially memorable because it was the feature film debut of none other than Hayao Miyazaki. It’s not a perfect movie, but for Ghibli fans, this is where it all began.

Things get off to a rollicking start with a caper in Monte Carlo. Escaping in his trusty turbo-charged Fiat Uno, Lupin discovers that his swag consists of counterfeit bills. Deciding to track down the source of the forgeries, he follows the trail to the small, San Marino-like principality of Cagliostro, only to become embroiled in an exciting three-way car chase as he encounters some hoodlums pursuing a 2CV driven by a damsel in distress.

This turns out to be Princess Clarisse, last scion of the impoverished royal family, who is about to enter into a forced marriage with the ruthless and venal Count Cagliostro. The bulk of the movie consists of Lupin’s attempts to liberate her from the Count’s castle and expose the evil-doing therein, while also keeping one eye out for some missing treasure and evading capture by the tenacious Inspector Zenigata. Luckily, he has gizmos galore to get him out of trouble, as well as several handy helpers – Fujiko, his female counterpart, who has already infiltrated the castle in the guise of a lady’s maid; Goeman, a traditional samurai; and strong-arm man Jigen, who wears a pork pie hat and has an Abraham Lincoln beard.

It’s not a great story, but it gives rises to plenty of thrills and spills, leavened with a good dose of humour. There’s lots of scurrying across rooftops, a fair bit of cartoonish slapstick, and a brilliantly conceived underwater sequence involving the castle’s labyrinthine hydraulic system. A steam launch makes an appearance, as does a bright red autogyro, early signs of Miyazaki’s abiding interest in weird and wonderful modes of transport. And there’s the fun of seeing these and various other creaky old vehicles shooting around at top speeds.

Some of the character design is pretty basic, but the film has a nice, airy ambience thanks to the lake and mountain backdrops and the attractively spindly architecture. True, it’s all a wee bit shallow, with scarcely a trace of the emotional punch of the later films, but it has a compensating freshness and joie de vivre, and some might even prefer this jaunty, lightweight Miyazaki to the one who, in Princess Mononoke, seemed so burdened with ecological concerns. A boisterous and welcome addition to this series of Ghibli releases on Blu-ray.

Extras: TBC

Review: Automan / Cert 12 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Desi Arnaz Jnr, Chuck Wagner, Robert Lansing, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Heather McNair / Release Date: Out Now

Starburst has fond memories of the summer of 1984. The Olympic Games were in Los Angeles and due to the time difference weren’t clogging up the only four channels we had back then. ITV debuted V, and the BBC gave us a double helping of Glen Larson productions. While Manimal was the must-see on Monday nights, Automan dominated the early evening slot on Saturdays.

Automan is the world’s first truly automatic super-hero, you see. He’s a hologram, as explained by an earnest sounding Automan himself in the first few episodes’ opening narration:

“A hologram is a fancy name for three dimensional picture, that when perfected can be made to look real, sound real, and given enough power can even be made to feel real.”

It started as a game by police computer specialist uber-nerd Walter Nebicher (Desi Arnaz Jnr) always at odds with his old school cop boss who doesn’t understand or trust computers. Now, the program has evolved into being a force for good who can be summoned via computer. Far more efficient and cost effective than, say, a bat signal. Naturally, Automan comes with his sidekick, Cursor, and an array of incredible vehicles to fight crime wherever he’s summoned.

Obviously inspired by Disney’s Tron (1982), the series still looks great, particularly Automan’s glowing blue suit, the effect achieved with reflective panels and a travelling matte. The naive and at times child-like hero is played to perfection by Chuck Wagner.

Sadly, in its half season run, this lighthearted series didn’t manage to venture beyond formulaic gangster of the week villains, drug smugglers, and the ensuing undercover operations to catch them. Automan was explained to Nebicher’s colleagues as “an undercover fed” named Otto Mann. It would’ve been cool to see the format widen so the character could battle an evil computer virus counterpart, for instance.

Despite being something of a quaint curiosity to the computer savvy audience of today who’ll smile as Nebicher patiently explains that the term “interface” means “two computers talking to one another” and at the clumsy unwieldiness of the hardware on display, the show has a lot of charm and is never less than great tongue in cheek entertainment.

This set contains all 13 episodes and a retrospective documentary full of fascinating trivia, for example the incredible Autocar was actually a Lamborghini Countach – probably the most expensive superhero car ever seen.

Review: Mission Impossible ’89 / Cert: 12 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Peter Graves, Thaao Penghlis, Anthony Hamilton, Phil Moris / Release Date: October 15th

In the late ’80s, ultra-craggy Jim Phelps (Graves) returned with an all-new Impossible Mission Force for two seasons of crime-busting action. Starburst very much enjoyed the first season, and now the second season arrives on a 4-disc boxset. So – should you accept the mission of watching it, or disavow all knowledge?

To recap, the gang under Phelps consists of Nicholas Black (Penglis), master of disguise; Max Harte (Hamilton), pilot and carpenter (not a skill you usually associate with cloak and dagger, but actually of vital importance, as many of the IMF’s operations call for the construction of elaborate sets); Grant Collier (Morris), tech guy (whose gizmos this time round include a device that can forge priceless paintings in a matter of minutes, and a laser printer that can run off perfect copies of ancient Egyptian papyruses); and Shannon Reed (Badler), token girl. In a series of globe-trotting adventures that takes them to all corners of Queensland, Australia, where much of the show was filmed, the team lay low various greedy and power-hungry baddies by entrapping them in elaborate subterfuges.

In a programme as formulaic as Mission: Impossible, even the smallest tweaks and modifications become fascinating, and this series introduces quite a few. The producers must have been worried that the ’88 season had seemed a little staid and old fashioned, because the ’89 season bears signs of a concerted effort to sex things up. It kicks off with a lively two-parter packed with James Bond-style moments, including a tussle high up on Sidney Harbour Bridge and a decent speedboat chase. Phelps (very much the front man of the ’88 season) is relegated to more of a backroom role, allowing the focus to shift to the young guns. And gender equality catches up to the IMF with a bang when, in one Moonraker-ish episode, Shannon Reed gets to fly a space shuttle.

As for the new crop of baddies, they’re a bit more switched on than before, with the team often having to move to plan B or even C before getting their man. There’s also less naivety in the choice of plotlines, i.e., fewer missions implausible in the Eastern bloc (where the native language is always English with a thick foreign accent, thus making it hilariously easy for the team to pose as locals). Instead, the writers cast their net wide, taking in the troubles in Ireland, Far Eastern triads and trade in nuclear armaments. Fezzes and mummy wrappings come out for a colourful tale of an Egyptian death sect, and there’s a brilliant episode dealing with illegal gold mining set among a stone-age tribe who worship a downed aviator as a god. A good final season before the show self-destructed.

Extras: None

Review: Monstro! / Cert: 18 / Director: Stuart Simpson / Screenplay: Stuart Simpson / Starring: Norman Yemm, Nelli Scarlet, Kyrie Capri, Karli Madden, Kate Watts / Release Date: October 22nd

Beretta, Snowball and Blondie, three murderous “crazy vixens” take refuge amongst a small Australian beachside community and party hard, resisting local advice to stay out of the water. They corrupt seventeen year-old Hanna (Capri) who lives next door with her crippled Granddad (Yemm) and, as they sleep through a drugs and alcohol fuelled hangover, something nasty and tentacled is awoken by their raucous activities and feasting gruesomely on the remaining local fishermen before turning its attention back towards the shore…

Monstro, written and directed by Stuart Simpson, is a stunning and accomplished homage to grindhouse cinema, 1970s independent exploitation movies and good old-fashion B-movie monster flicks. This is ‘creature from beneath the sea’ stuff, its shambolic monster being accomplished purely (and cheaply) by practical effects and buckets of blood and there’s no stinting on the gore and violence – heads and limbs are ripped from bodies, bodies are eviscerated, faces are torn off. It’s all deliciously cheesy and lo-fi and the film just oozes sleaziness as our girls happily dispatch their own victims with throat-slitting glee before indulging in an orgy of booze and drugs and ill-advised midnight dips.

Simpson’s direction is as tight as his script is economic. He effortlessly builds up the tension as we wait for the creature to rise up from the deep and he teases us with shots of tentacles writhing through the water and rising up to claim another hapless victim before giving us what we’ve been waiting for with an all-out attack by the whole creature, complete with gaping maw and gnashing teeth and a desperate battle for survival as Hannah and the remaining hellcats fight against a thrashing, unstoppable, inhuman monster.

Monstro has got cult status written right through it and it’s yet another classy example of how cheap indie cinema is running rings around the Hollywood studio system at the moment. Absolutely labour-of-love stuff from start to finish, this has a verve and energy you just don’t find in your summer tent pole movies and, at seventy-odd minutes, it just gets in, gets on with it, gets the story told and the job done. Irresistibly enjoyable and gloriously tacky, Monstro is unmissable if you’re in the mood for some old school monster mayhem laced with scuzzy, lowlife bloody thrills.

Extras: Short films, behind the scenes, deleted scenes, trailer.